Mouse freezing/constantly 2nd gen intel

Hi - I've installed Ubuntu 11.04 and the new Linux mint and even tried running Fedora 15 live from a USB and every time after about 5 minutes the mouse/point in the screen will freeze for 5-7 seconds. After another 5 minutes the mouse freezes again for 5-7 seconds. I've tried disabling the touchpad and only using the trackpoint and no dice.

Can someone help me fix this problem? Its been going on and seems to be getting worse and I have to use windows because the freezing is so persistent.

I have a second gen intel i5 with integrated graphics. The laptop is a Thinkpad L420.

I've installed all the updates even the 'pre-release' updates. There was a new update on Linux Mint for synaptic that I thought would have fixed it but no dice again. I'll post more info if someone needs it and can help. Thanks

 

Sounds like maybe a BIOS bug.

Try the irqpoll boot option - see http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Editing the GRUB 2 Menu During Boot

 

Update BIOS, if an update is available, although you'll probably have to do the update from Windows. Similarly, you can explore touchpad driver updates. Of course, you might have the "new hardware" blue. Sometimes it takes a while for the kernel to catch up with the hardware.

 

will setting irqpoll boot option drain the battery much faster? Also, I think 11.04 ubuntu/kubuntu has grub2; does the irqpoll option differentiate between grub/grub2?